Biography

Weber was born in 1864, in Erfurt in Thuringia, Germany, the eldest of seven children of Max Weber Sr., a wealthy and prominent politician in the National Liberal Party (Germany) and a civil servant, and Helene Fallenstein, a Protestant and a Calvinist, with strong moral absolutist ideas.[8] Weber Sr.'s engagement with public life immersed the family home in politics, as his salon received many prominent scholars and public figures. Weber was strongly influenced by his mother's views and approach to life, but he did not claim to be religious himself.

The young Weber and his brother Alfred, who also became a sociologist and economist, thrived in this intellectual atmosphere. Weber's 1876 Christmas presents to his parents, when he was thirteen years old, were two historical essays entitled "About the course of German history, with special reference to the positions of the emperor and the pope" and "About the Roman Imperial period from Constantine to the migration of nations".[9] At the age of fourteen, he wrote letters studded with references to Homer, Virgil, Cicero, and Livy, and he had an extended knowledge of Goethe, Spinoza, Kant, and Schopenhauer before he began university studies. It seemed clear that Weber would pursue advanced studies in the social sciences.

Max Weber and his brothers, Alfred and Karl, in 1879

In 1882 Weber enrolled in the University of Heidelberg as a law student.[10] Weber joined his father's duelling fraternity, and chose as his major study Weber Sr.'s field of law. Along with his law coursework, young Weber attended lectures in economics and studied medieval history and theology. Intermittently, he served with the German army in Strasbourg.

In the years between the completion of his dissertation and habilitation, Weber took an interest in contemporary social policy. In 1888 he joined the "Verein f√ľr Socialpolitik",[12] the new professional association of German economists affiliated with the historical school, who saw the role of economics primarily as the solving of the wide-ranging social problems of the age, and who pioneered large scale statistical studies of economic problems. He also involved himself in politics, joining the left leaning Evangelical Social Congress.[13] In 1890 the "Verein" established a research program to examine "the Polish question" or Ostflucht, meaning the influx of foreign farm workers into eastern Germany as local labourers migrated to Germany's rapidly industrialising cities. Weber was put in charge of the study, and wrote a large part of its results.[12] The final report was widely acclaimed as an excellent piece of empirical research, and cemented Weber's reputation as an expert in agrarian economics.

Max Weber and his wife Marianne in 1894

In 1893 he married his distant cousin Marianne Schnitger, later a feminist and author in her own right,[14] who was instrumental in collecting and publishing Weber's journal articles as books after his death. The couple moved to Freiburg in 1894, where Weber was appointed professor of economics at Freiburg University,[11] before accepting the same position at the University of Heidelberg in 1896.[11] Next year, Max Weber Sr. died, two months after a severe quarrel with his son that was never resolved.[15] After this, Weber became increasingly prone to nervousness and insomnia, making it difficult for him to fulfill his duties as a professor.[11] His condition forced him to reduce his teaching, and leave his last course in the fall of 1899 unfinished. After spending months in a sanatorium during the summer and fall of 1900, Weber and his wife traveled to Italy at the end of the year, and did not return to Heidelberg until April 1902.

Weber resumed teaching during this time, first at the University of Vienna, then in 1919 at the University of Munich.[16] In Munich, he headed the first German university institute of sociology, but ultimately never held a personal sociology appointment. Weber left politics due to right-wing agitation in 1919 and 1920. Many colleagues and students in Munich argued against him for his speeches and left-wing attitude during the German Revolution of 1918 and 1919, with some right-wing students holding protests in front of his home.[20] Max Weber contracted the Spanish flu and died of pneumonia in Munich on June 14, 1920.

The affinity between capitalism and Protestantism, the religious origins of the Western world, the force of charisma in religion as well as in politics, the all-embracing process of rationalization and the bureaucratic price of progress, the role of legitimacy and of violence as offsprings of leadership, the 'disenchantment' of the modern world together with the never-ending power of religion, the antagonistic relation between intellectualism and eroticism: all these are key concepts which attest to the enduring fascination of Weber's thinking.

[Sociology is ] ... the science whose object is to interpret the meaning of social action and thereby give a causal explanation of the way in which the action proceeds and the effects which it produces. By 'action' in this definition is meant the human behaviour when and to the extent that the agent or agents see it as subjectively meaningful ... the meaning to which we refer may be either (a) the meaning actually intended either by an individual agent on a particular historical occasion or by a number of agents on an approximate average in a given set of cases, or (b) the meaning attributed to the agent or agents, as types, in a pure type constructed in the abstract. In neither case is the 'meaning' to be thought of as somehow objectively 'correct' or 'true' by some metaphysical criterion. This is the difference between the empirical sciences of action, such as sociology and history, and any kind of priori discipline, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, or aesthetics whose aim is to extract from their subject-matter 'correct' or 'valid' meaning.

Weber began his studies of rationalisation in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in which he argued that the redefinition of the connection between work and piety in Protestantism, and especially in asceticProtestantdenominations, particularly Calvinism,[31] shifted human effort towards rational efforts aimed at achieving economic gain. In Calvinism in particular, but also in Lutheranism, Christian piety towards God was expressed through or in one's secular vocation. Calvin, in particular, viewed the expression of the work ethic as a sign of "election". The rational roots of this doctrine, he argued, soon grew incompatible with and larger than the religious, and so the latter were eventually discarded.[32] Weber continued his investigation into this matter in later works, notably in his studies on bureaucracy and on the classifications of authority into three types‚ÄĒlegitimate, traditional, and charismatic. In these works Weber described what he saw as society's movement towards rationalization.

What Weber depicted was not only the secularization of Western culture, but also and especially the development of modern societies from the viewpoint of rationalization. The new structures of society were marked by the differentiation of the two functionally intermeshing systems that had taken shape around the organizational cores of the capitalist enterprise and the bureaucratic state apparatus. Weber understood this process as the institituionalization of purposive-rational economic and administrative action. To the degree that everyday life was affected by this cultural and societal rationalization, tradional forms of life - which in the early modern period were differentated primarily according to one's trade - were dissolved.

It should be noted that many of Weber's works famous today were collected, revised, and published posthumously. Significant interpretations of his writings were produced by such sociological luminaries as Talcott Parsons and C. Wright Mills. Parsons in particular imparted to Weber's works a functionalist, teleological perspective; this personal interpretation has been criticised for a latent conservatism.[34]

Sociology of religion

Weber's work in the field of sociology of religion started with the essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which grew out of heavy "field work" among Protestant sects in America, and continued with the analysis of The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism, and Ancient Judaism. His work on other religions was interrupted by his sudden death in 1920, which prevented him from following Ancient Judaism with studies of Psalms, Book of Jacob, Talmudic Jewry, early Christianity and Islam.[35] His three main themes were the effect of religious ideas on economic activities, the relation between social stratification and religious ideas, and the distinguishable characteristics of Western civilization.[36]

His goal was to find reasons for the different development paths of the cultures of the Occident and the Orient, although without judging or valuing them, like some of the contemporary thinkers who followed the social Darwinist paradigm; Weber wanted primarily to explain the distinctive elements of the Western civilization.[36] In the analysis of his findings, Weber maintained that Calvinist (and more widely, Protestant) religious ideas had had a major impact on the social innovation and development of the economic system of Europe and the United States, but noted that they were not the only factors in this development. Other notable factors mentioned by Weber included the rationalism of scientific pursuit, merging observation with mathematics, science of scholarship and jurisprudence, rational systematization of government administration, and economic enterprise.[36] In the end, the study of the sociology of religion, according to Weber, merely explored one phase of the freedom from magic, that "disenchantment of the world" that he regarded as an important distinguishing aspect of Western culture.[36]

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Weber's essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus) is his most famous work.[18] It is argued that this work should not be viewed as a detailed study of Protestantism, but rather as an introduction into Weber's later works, especially his studies of interaction between various religious ideas and economic behaviour. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber put forward the thesis that Calvinist ethic and ideas influenced the development of capitalism. In this work, he relied on a great deal of statistics from the era, which indicated the predominance of Protestants among the wealthy, industrial, and technical classes relative to Catholics. He also noted the shift of Europe's economic center after the Reformation away from Catholic countries such as France, Spain and Italy, and toward Protestant countries such as the Netherlands, England, Scotland and Germany. This theory is often viewed as a reversal of Marx's thesis that the economic "base" of society determines all other aspects of it.[31] Christian religious devotion had historically been accompanied by rejection of mundane affairs, including economic pursuit.[37] Why was that not the case with Protestantism? Weber addressed that paradox in his essay.

According to Weber, one of the universal tendencies that Christians had historically fought against, was the desire to profit. After defining the spirit of capitalism, Weber argued that there were many reasons to look for the origins of modern capitalism in the religious ideas of the Reformation. Many observers, such as William Petty, Montesquieu, Henry Thomas Buckle, John Keats, and others had commented on the affinity between Protestantism and the development of the commercial spirit.[38]

Weber showed that certain types of Protestantism ‚Äď notably Calvinism ‚Äď favored rational pursuit of economic gain and worldly activities which had been given positive spiritual and moral meaning.[31] It was not the goal of those religious ideas, but rather a byproduct ‚Äď the inherent logic of those doctrines and the advice based upon them both directly and indirectly encouraged planning and self-denial in the pursuit of economic gain. A common illustration is in the cobbler, hunched over his work, who devotes his entire effort to the praise of God. In addition, the Reformation view "calling" dignified even the most mundane professions as being those that added to the common good and were blessed by God, as much as any "sacred" calling could. This Reformation view, that all the spheres of life were sacred when dedicated to God and His purposes of nurturing and furthering life, profoundly affected the view of work.

To illustrate and provide an example, Weber quoted the ethical writings of Benjamin Franklin:

Remember, that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad, or sits idle, one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides. ... Remember, that money is the prolific, generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six, turned again is seven and threepence, and so on, till it becomes a hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds.(Italics in the original)

Weber noted that this is not a philosophy of mere greed, but a statement laden with moral language. Indeed, Franklin claimed that God revealed to him the usefulness of virtue.[39]

To emphasize the work ethic in Protestantism relative to Catholicism, Weber noted a common problem that industrialists faced when employing precapitalist laborers: agricultural entrepreneurs would try to encourage time spent harvesting by offering a higher wage, with the expectation that laborers would see time spent working as more valuable and so engage it longer. However, in precapitalist societies similar attempts often resulted in laborers spending less time harvesting. Laborers judged that they could earn the same amount as previously, while spending less time working and having more leisure. Weber also noted that societies having more Protestants were those that have a more developed capitalist economy.[40]

It was particularly advantageous in technical occupations for workers to be extremely devoted to their craft. To view the craft as an end in itself, or as a "calling" would serve this need well. This attitude was well-noted in certain classes which have endured religious education, especially of a Pietist background.[41]

Weber stated that he abandoned research into Protestantism because his colleague Ernst Troeltsch, a professional theologian, had initiated work on the book The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches and Sects. Another reason for Weber's decision was that the essay had already provided the perspective for a broad comparison of religion and society, which he continued in his later works.[42] The phrase "work ethic" used in modern commentary is a derivative of the "Protestant ethic" discussed by Weber. It was adopted when the idea of the Protestant ethic was generalised to apply to the Japanese people, Jews and other non-Christians.

The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism

Main article: The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism

The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism was Weber's second major work on the sociology of religion. Weber focused on those aspects of Chinese society that were different from those of Western Europe and especially contrasted with Puritanism, and posed a question why capitalism did not develop in China. In Hundred Schools of ThoughtWarring States Period, he concentrated on the early period of Chinese history, during which the major Chinese schools of thoughts (Confucianism and Taoism) came to the fore.[43]

By 200 BC, the Chinese state had developed from a loose federation of feudal states into a unified empire with patrimonial rule, as described in the Warring States Period.[43] As in Europe, Chinese cities had been founded as forts or leaders' residences, and were the centres of trade and crafts. However, they never received political autonomy and its citizens had no special political rights or privileges. This is due to the strength of kinship ties, which stems from religious beliefs in ancestral spirits. Also, the guilds competed against each other for the favor of the Emperor, never uniting in order to fight for more rights. Therefore, the residents of Chinese cities never constitute a separate status class like the residents of European cities.[44]

Early unification of the state and the establishment of central officialdom meant that the focus of the power struggle changed from the distribution of land to the distribution of offices, which with their fees and taxes were the most prominent source of income for the holder, who often pocketed up to 50% of the revenue. The imperial government depended on the services of those officials, not on the service of the military (knights) as in Europe.[44]

Weber emphasised that Confucianism tolerated a great number of popular cults without any effort to systematise them into a religious doctrine. Instead of metaphysical conjectures, it taught adjustment to the world. The "superior" man (literati) should stay away from the pursuit of wealth (though not from wealth itself). Therefore, becoming a civil servant was preferred to becoming a businessman and granted a much higher status.[45]

Chinese civilization had no religious prophecy nor a powerful priestly class. The emperor was the high priest of the state religion and the supreme ruler, but popular cults were also tolerated (however the political ambitions of their priests were curtailed). This forms a sharp contrast with medieval Europe, where the Church curbed the power of secular rulers and the same faith was professed by rulers and common folk alike.

According to Confucianism, the worship of great deities is the affair of the state, while ancestral worship is required of all, and the multitude of popular cults is tolerated. Confucianism tolerated magic and mysticism as long as they were useful tools for controlling the masses; it denounced them as heresy and suppressed them when they threatened the established order (hence the opposition to Buddhism). Note that in this context, Confucianism can be referred to as the state cult, and Taoism as the popular religion.[46]

Weber argued that while several factors favored the development of a capitalist economy (long periods of peace, improved control of rivers, population growth, freedom to acquire land and move outside of native community, free choice of occupation) they were outweighed by others (mostly stemming from religion):

technical inventions were opposed on the basis of religion, in the sense that the disturbance of ancestral spirits was argued to lead to bad luck, and adjusting oneself to the world was preferred to changing it.

sale of land was often prohibited or made very difficult.

extended kinship groups (based on the religious importance of family ties and ancestry) protected its members against economic adversities, therefore discouraging payment of debts, work discipline, and rationalisation of work processes.

those kinship groups prevented the development of an urban status class and hindered developments towards legal institutions, codification of laws, and the rise of a lawyer class.[43]

According to Weber, Confucianism and Puritanism represent two comprehensive but mutually exclusive types of rationalisation, each attempting to order human life according to certain ultimate religious beliefs. Both encouraged sobriety and self-control and were compatible with the accumulation of wealth. However, Confucianism aimed at attaining and preserving "a cultured status position" and used as means adjustment to the world, education, self-perfection, politeness and familial piety. Puritanism used those means in order to create a "tool of God", creating a person that would serve the God and master the world. Such intensity of belief and enthusiasm for action were alien to the aesthetic values of Confucianism. Therefore, Weber states that it was the difference in prevailing mentality that contributed to the development of capitalism in the West and the absence of it in China.[47]

[The Religion of Nepal: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism]

Main article: The Religion of Nepal: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism

The Religion of Nepal: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism was Weber's third major work on the sociology of religion. In this work he deals with the structure of Indian society, with the orthodox doctrines of Hinduism and the heterodox doctrines of Buddhism, with modifications brought by the influence of popular religiosity, and finally with the impact of religious beliefs on the secular ethic of Indian society.[48]

The ancient Nepalese social system was shaped by the concept of caste. It directly linked religious belief and the segregation of society into status groups. Weber describes the caste system, consisting of the Brahmins (priests), the Kshatriyas (warriors), the Vaisyas (merchants) and the Shudras (labourers). Then he describes the spread of the caste system in Nepal due to conquests, the marginalisation of certain tribes and the subdivision of castes.[48]

Weber pays special attention to Brahmins and analyzes why they occupied the highest place in Nepalese society for so many centuries. With regard to the concept of dharma he concludes that the Indian ethical pluralism is very different both from the universal ethic of Confucianism and Christianity. He notes that the caste system prevented the development of urban status groups.[49]

Next, Weber analyses the Hindu religious beliefs, including asceticism and the Hindu world view, the Brahman orthodox doctrines, the rise and fall of Buddhism in Nepal, the Hindu restoration, and the evolution of the guru. Weber asks the question whether religion had any influence upon the daily round of mundane activities, and if so, how it impacted economic conduct. He notes the idea of an immutable world order consisting of the eternal cycles of rebirth and the deprecation of the mundane world, and finds that the traditional caste system, supported by the religion, slowed economic development; in other words, the "spirit" of the caste system militated against an indigenous development of capitalism.[49]

Weber concludes his study of society and religion in India by combining his findings with his previous work on China. He notes that the beliefs tended to interpret the meaning of life as otherworldly or mystical experience, that the intellectuals tended to be apolitical in their orientation, and that the social world was fundamentally divided between the educated, whose lives were oriented toward the exemplary conduct of a prophet or wise man, and the uneducated masses who remained caught in their daily rounds and believed in magic. In Asia, no Messianic prophecy appeared that could have given "plan and meaning to the everyday life of educated and uneducated alike." He argues that it was the Messianic prophecies in the countries of the Near East, as distinguished from the prophecy of the Asiatic mainland, that prevented Western countries from following the paths of China and India, and his next work, Ancient Judaism was an attempt to prove this theory.[50]

Ancient Judaism

In Ancient Judaism, his fourth major work on the sociology of religion, Weber attempted to explain the "combination of circumstances" which resulted in the early differences between Oriental and Occidentalreligiosity.[51] It is especially visible when the innerworldly asceticism developed by Western Christianity is contrasted with mystical contemplation of the kind developed in India.[51] Weber noted that some aspects of Christianity sought to conquer and change the world, rather than withdraw from its imperfections.[51] This fundamental characteristic of Christianity (when compared to Far Eastern religions) stems originally from ancient Jewish prophecy.[52] Stating his reasons for investigating ancient Judaism, Weber wrote that

Anyone who is heir to the traditions of modern European civilization will approach the problems of universal history with a set of questions, which to him appear both inevitable and legitimate. These questions will turn on the combination of circumstances which has brought about the cultural phenomena that are uniquely Western and that have at the same time (‚Ä¶) a universal cultural significance.[51]

Further on he adds:

"For the Jew (‚Ä¶) the social order of the world was conceived to have been turned into the opposite of that promised for the future, but in the future it was to be overturned so that Jewry could be once again dominant. The world was conceived as neither eternal nor unchangeable, but rather as being created. Its present structure was a product of man's actions, above all those of the Jews, and God's reaction to them. Hence the world was a historical product designed to give way to the truly God-ordained order (‚Ä¶). There existed in addition a highly rational religious ethic of social conduct; it was free of magic and all forms of irrational quest for salvation; it was inwardly worlds apart from the path of salvation offered by Asiatic religions. To a large extent this ethic still underlies contemporary Middle Eastern and European ethic. World-historical interest in Jewry rests upon this fact. (‚Ä¶) Thus, in considering the conditions of Jewry's evolution, we stand at a turning point of the whole cultural development of the West and the Middle East".[52]

Weber analyzes the interaction between the Bedouins, the cities, the herdsmen and the peasants, including the conflicts between them and the rise and fall of the United Monarchy. The time of the United Monarchy appears as a mere episode, dividing the period of confederacy since the Exodus and the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan from the period of political decline following the division of the monarchy. This division into periods has major implications for religious history. Since the basic tenets of Judaism were formulated during the time of Israelite confederacy and after the fall of the United Monarchy, they became the basis of the prophetic movement that left a lasting impression on the Western civilization.[53]

Weber discusses the organization of the early confederacy, the unique qualities of the Israelites' relations to Yahweh, the influence of foreign cults, types of religious ecstasy, and the struggle of the priests against ecstasy and idol worship. He goes on to describe the times of the Division of the Monarchy, social aspects of Biblical prophecy, the social orientation of the prophets, demagogues and pamphleteers, ecstasy and politics, and the ethic and theodicity of the prophets. Weber notes that Judaism not only fathered Christianity and Islam, but was crucial to the rise of modern Occident state, as its influence were as important to those of Hellenistic and Roman cultures. Reinhard Bendix, summarizing Ancient Judaism, writes that

free of magic and esoteric speculations, devoted to the study of law, vigilant in the effort to do what was right in the eyes of the Lord in the hope of a better future, the prophets established a religion of faith that subjected man's daily life to the imperatives of a divinely ordained moral law. In this way, ancient Judaism helped create the moral rationalism of Western civilisation.[54]

Sociology of politics and government

In political sociology, one of Weber's most significant contributions is his Politics as a Vocation essay. Therein, Weber unveils the definition of the state that has become so pivotal to Western social thought: that the state is that entity which possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force,[55] which it may nonetheless elect to delegate as it sees fit. In this essay, Weber wrote that politics is to be understood as any activity in which the state might engage itself in order to influence the relative distribution of force. Politics thus comes to be understood as deriving from power. A politician must not be a man of the "true Christian ethic", understood by Weber as being the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount, that is to say, the injunction to turn the other cheek. An adherent of such an ethic ought rather to be understood to be a saint, for it is only saints, according to Weber, that can appropriately follow it. The political realm is no realm for saints. A politician ought to marry the ethic of ultimate ends and the ethic of responsibility, and must possess both a passion for his vocation and the capacity to distance himself from the subject of his exertions (the governed).[56]

Weber distinguished three pure types of political leadership, domination and authority:

In his view, every historical relation between rulers and ruled contained such elements and they can be analysed on the basis of this tripartite distinction.[58] He also notes that the instability of charismatic authority inevitably forces it to "routinize" into a more structured form of authority. Likewise he notes that in a pure type of traditional rule, sufficient resistance to a master can lead to a "traditional revolution". Thus he alludes to an inevitable move towards a rational-legal structure of authority, utilising a bureaucratic structure.[59] Thus this theory can be sometimes viewed as part of the social evolutionism theory. This ties to his broader concept of rationalisation by suggesting the inevitability of a move in this direction.

Weber is also well-known for his critical study of the bureaucratisation of society, the rational ways in which formal social organizations apply the ideal type characteristics of a bureaucracy. It was Weber who began the studies of bureaucracy and whose works led to the popularization of this term.[60] Many aspects of modern public administration go back to him, and a classic, hierarchically organized civil service of the Continental type is called "Weberian civil service", although this is only one ideal type of public administration and government described in his magnum opusEconomy and Society (1922), and one that he did not particularly like himself ‚Äď he only thought it particularly efficient and successful. In this work, Weber outlines a description, which has become famous, of rationalization (of which bureaucratization is a part) as a shift from a value-oriented organization and action (traditional authority and charismatic authority) to a goal-oriented organization and action (legal-rational authority). The result, according to Weber, is a "polar night of icy darkness", in which increasing rationalization of human life traps individuals in an "iron cage" of rule-based, rational control.[61] Weber's bureaucracy studies also led him to his analysis ‚Äď correct, as it would turn out, after Stalin's takeover ‚Äď that socialism in Russia would lead to over-bureaucratization rather than to the "withering away of the state" (as Karl Marx had predicted would happen in communist society).[62]

Economics

While Weber is best known and recognized today as one of the leading scholars and founders of modern sociology, he also accomplished much in other fields, notably economics, although this is largely forgotten today among orthodox economists, who pay very little attention to his works. The view that Weber is at all influential to modern economists comes largely from non-economists and economic critics with sociology backgrounds. During his life distinctions between the social sciences were less clear than they are now, and Weber considered himself a historian and an economist first, sociologist distant second.[24][25]

The doctrine of Interpretative Sociology is one of the main sociological paradigms, with many supporters as well as critics. This thesis states that social, economic and historical research can never be fully inductive or descriptive as one must always approach it with a conceptual apparatus, which Weber termed "Ideal Type".[63] The idea can be summarized as follows: an ideal type is formed from characteristics and elements of the given phenomena but it is not meant to correspond to all of the characteristics of any one particular case. Weber's Ideal Type became one of the most important concepts in social sciences, and led to the creation of such concepts as Ferdinand T√∂nnies' "Normal Type".

Weber conceded that employing "Ideal Types" was an abstraction but claimed that it was nonetheless essential if one were to understand any particular social phenomena because, unlike physical phenomena, they involve human behaviour which must be interpreted by ideal types. This, together with his antipositivistic argumentation can be viewed as the methodological justification for the assumption of the "rational economic man" (homo economicus).[63]

As a critic of socialism

In the final years of his career Weber became vocal critic of socialism, both in European and Bolshevik variants. He saw Lenin's ideal of applying hierarchical mode of organization in the firm on society at large as an attempt to universalize serfdom. He believed that workers in socialist society still would work in hierarchy, but this time in much worse form of it, fused with government power.[citation needed]

Weber developed, independently from Ludwig von Mises, a critique of socialism as an economically impossible system.[65] Weber stated that when socialism abolishes private property in the means of production, it would at the same time abolish market prices and monetary calculation of cost and profit, and that way make a rational planned economy impossible.[citation needed] Socialist central planners can resort to calculation in-kind, but this type of economic coordination would be grossly inefficient. According to Weber, the main reason why a socialist in-kind mode of economic calculation cannot work is because it is unable to solve the problem of imputation (i.e. to determine the relative price of capital goods):

In order to make possible a rational utilization of the means of production, a system of in-kind accounting would have to determine "value"-indicators of some kind for the individual capital goods which could take over the role of the "prices" used in book valuation in modern business accounting. But it is not at all clear how such indicators could be established, and in particular, verified; whether, for instance, they should vary from one production unit to the next (on the basis of economic location), or whether they should be uniform for the entire economy, on the basis of "social utility," that is, of (present and future) consumption requirements? [...] Nothing is gained by assuming that, if only the problem of a non-monetary economy were seriously enough attacked, a suitable accounting method would be discovered or invented. The problem is fundamental to any kind of complete socialization. We cannot speak of a rational "planned economy" so long as in this decisive respect we have no instrument for elaborating a rational "plan".[66]

Critical responses to Weber

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Influence from and on the Austrian school

During his own lifetime, Weber was critical of the neoclassical economic approaches of authors such as Carl Menger and Friedrich von Wieser, whose formal approach was quite different from his own historical sociology. The work of these authors eventually led to the creation of the Austrian School of economics. This includes followers of Friedrich von Hayek and, more recently, authors Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw. In their pro-globalization book Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, they attack Weber for claiming that only Protestantism could lead to a work ethic, pointing to the "Tiger Economies" of Southeastern Asia.

However, in these debates, it is easy to overlook that the methods advocated by these later generations of the Austrian School are heavily indebted to the work of Weber. His "action sociology", as they called it, was a frequent topic in the "Mises Circle", an influential group headed by Ludwig von Mises, a key figure in the Austrian School. Among the attendees was a student of Mises, the philosopher of sociology Alfred Schutz, who sought to clarify Weber's interpretive approach in terms of the analytic phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. Hence, although Schutz's work, especially The Phenomenology of the Social World (1932), is in effect a profound critique of Weber's method, it is nevertheless an attempt to further it. Hayek also frequently attended these discussions, and the subjective method advanced in his The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies in the Abuse of Reason (1952) reflects these influences. Ludwig Lachmann, a later member of the Austrian School, made explicit the Austrian School's indebtedness to the Weberian method.

Interestingly, given their methodological and sociological differences, Weber and Mises were not only acquainted, they shared an admiration for each other‚Äôs work. Mises considered Weber a "great genius" and his death a blow to Germany. Likewise, Weber comments that Mises‚Äôs Theory of Money and Credit is the monetary theory most acceptable to him[67]. Weber accepted Ludwig von Mises's criticism of socialist economic planning and added his own argument. He believed that under socialism workers would still work in a hierarchy, but that now the hierarchy would be fused with government. Instead of dictatorship of the worker, he foresaw dictatorship of the official.

Historical critiques

The economist Joseph Schumpeter argued that capitalism did not begin with the Industrial Revolution but in 14th century Italy.[68] In Milan, Venice, and Florence the small city-state governments led to the development of the earliest forms of capitalism.[69] In the 16th century Antwerp was a commercial center of Europe. It was also noted that the predominantly Calvinist country of Scotland did not enjoy the same economic growth as Holland, England, and New England. In addition, it has been pointed out that Holland, which was heavily Calvinist, industrialized much later in the 19th century than predominantly Catholic Belgium, which was one of the centres of the Industrial Revolution on the European mainland.[70]

Emil Kauder expanded Schumpeter's argument by arguing the hypothesis that Calvinism hurt the development of capitalism by leading to the development of the labor theory of value. Kauder writes "Any social philosopher or economist exposed to Calvinism will be tempted to give labor an exalted position in his social or economic treatise, and no better way of extolling labor can be found than by combining work with value theory, traditionally the very basis of an economic system."[71] In contrast, Catholic areas that were influenced by the late scholastics were more likely to adhere to the subjective theory of value.

Rebuttal of such criticisms look not at small areas such as Holland and Belgium, or between the Mercantilist capitalism of Venice and industrial capitalism proper, but at the larger "blooms" of capitalism, where its beginnings had also taken permanent and decisive hold.[citation needed]

^ Weber wrote his books in German. Original titles printed after his death (1920) are most likely compilations of his unfinished works (note the 'Collected Essays...' form in titles). Many translations are made of parts or sections of various German originals, and the names of the translations often do not reveal what part of German work they contain. Weber's work is generally quoted according to the critical Gesamtausgabe (collected works edition), which is published by Mohr Siebeck in T√ľbingen, Germany. For an extensive list of Max Weber's works see list of Max Weber works.

^ "The prestige of Max Weber among European social scientists would be difficult to over-estimate." ‚Äď Gerth, Hans Heinrich and Charles Wright Mills (eds.) (1991). From Max Weber: essays in sociology. Routledge, p.i.

The modern man is in general, even with the best will,
unable to give religious ideas a significance for culture and
national character which they deserve. But one can, of course, not
aim to replace a one-sided materialistic with an equally one-sided
spiritualistic causal interpretation of culture and of history.
Each is equally possible, but each, if it does not serve as the
preparation, but as the conclusion of an investigation, accomplish
equally little in the interest of historical truth.

The fate of our times is characterized by
rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the
disenchantment of the world. Precisely the
ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life
either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the
brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. It is
not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not
monumental.

Mysticism intends a state of "possession,"
not action, and the individual is not a tool but a "vessel" of the
divine. Action in the world must thus appear as
endangering the absolutely irrational and other-worldly religious
state. Active asceticism operates within the world;
rationally active asceticism, in mastering the world, seeks to tame
what is creatural and wicked through work in a worldly "vocation"
(inner-worldly asceticism). Such asceticism contrasts radically
with mysticism, if the latter draws the full conclusion of fleeing
from the world (contemplative flight from the world). The contrast
is tempered, however, if active asceticism confines itself to
keeping down and to overcoming creatural wickedness in the actor's
own nature. For then it enhances the concentration on the firmly
established God-willed and active redemptory accomplishments to the
point of avoiding any action in the orders of the world (asceticist
flight from the world). Thereby active asceticism in external
bearing comes close to contemplative flight from the world.
The contrast between asceticism and mysticism is also
tempered if the contemplative mystic does not draw the conclusion
that he should flee from the world, but, like the inner-worldly
asceticist, remain in the orders of the world (inner-worldly
mysticism).
In both cases the contrast can actually disappear in practice and
some combination of both forms of the quest for salvation may
occur. But the contrast may continue to exist even under the veil
of external similarity. For the true mystic the principle
continues to hold: the creature must be silent so that God may
speak.

Last words, as quoted in Prophets of Yesterday :
Studies in European Culture, 1890-1914 (1961) by Gerhard
Masur, p. 201

Since Judaism made Christianity possible and gave it the
character of a religion essentially free from magic, it rendered an
important service from the point of view of economic history. For
the dominance of magic outside the sphere in which Christianity has
prevailed in one of the most serious obstructions to the
rationalization of economic life. Magic involves a stereotyping of
technology and economic relations. When attempts were made in China
to inaugurate the building of railroads and factories a conflict
with geomancy ensued ... Similar is the relation to capitalism of
the castes in India. Every new technical process which an Indian
employs signifies for him first of all that he leaves his caste and
falls into another, necessarily lower ... An additional fact is
that every caste makes every other caste impure. In consequence,
workmen who dare not accept a vessel filled with water from each
other's hands, cannot be employed together in the same factory
room. Obviously, capitalism could not develop in an economic group
thus bound hand and foot by magical means.

A fully developed bureaucratic mechanism stands in the same
relationship to other forms as does the machine to the
non-mechanical production of goods. Precision, speed, clarity,
documentary ability, continuity, discretion, unity, rigid
subordination, reduction of friction and material and personal
expenses are unique to bureaucratic organization.

'The Theory of Social and Economic Organization'

Quotes about
Weber

Max Weber and Vladimir Lenin say, in almost identical
words, that with regard to the use of force the state is always a
dictatorship.

The Nature of
Charismatic Authority Introduction

Max Weber (1864-1902) was born in Erfurt, the son of a
prosperous and influential lawyer who was active in politics. Like
his friend Simmel, Weber was brought up in Berlin. He studied law,
history, economics, and philosophy and achieved early recognition,
becoming a professor at the age of 30. Then he suffered a nervous
breakdown which forced him to give up teaching. After he recovered,
he spent most of his life in private study. His writings were
extensive; although many volumes have been translated into English,
a considerable amount remains untranslated. Weber believed that the
same forms of social organization develop independently in
different cultured, and his enormous historical knowledge enabled
him to demonstrate the one point again and again. He was discussing
religious congregations and the balance between preaching and
pastoral care in such congregations. "Among those religious
functionaries whose pastoral care has influenced the everyday life
of the laity and the behaviour of political officials in an
enduring and often decisive manner have been the counselling rabbis
of Judaism, the father confessors of Catholicism, the pietistic
pastors of souls in Protestantism, the directors of souls in
Counter Reformation Catholicism, the Brahminic purohitas at the
court, the gurus and gosains in Hinduism, and the muftis and
dervish sheikhs in Islam. One of Weber's lifelong concerns was to
show how the major segments of a society influenced each other in
their historical development. His first important work, The
Protestant Ethic aud. The Spirit of Capitalism, demonstrated how
the religious values held by the luritan sects of the Reformation,
especially their asceticism and their belief that God arbitrarily
elects certain souls for salvation, contributed to the development
of industrial capitalism in England and northern Europe by
providing motives for hard work, austere living, and the
accumulation of wealth. Although it was not his sole purpose, Weber
refuted Marx's contention that all beliefs and values were mere
superstructure, explainable by reference to the organization of
production, by showing that beliefs and values could be equally
well used to explain the development of a system of production.
Because he provided an alternative explanation of the rise of
capitalism and a different set of predictions about its future,
Weber has been called "the Marx of the bourgeoisie." But his
historical analyses go far beyond this one point; he was able to
show the mutual dependence of economic systems, forms of
government, social stratification, and religious beliefs in Greece
and Rome, in the Middle Ages, in the ancient Near East, in India,
China, Japan, and medieval Russia, indeed wherever civilization had
left written records.

THE
PERCEPTION OF CHARISMA

In Weber‚Äôs word the word "charisma" is denoted to a quality of
an individual personality, which makes him distinguish from other
persons in a society. This quality may be a supernatural,
superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional power. We may say
in simple that it is God gifted. These traits, as such, are not
accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine
origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual
concerned is treated as a leader. In primitive circumstances this
peculiar kind of deference is paid to prophets, to people with a
reputation for therapeutic or legal wisdom, to leaders in the hunt,
and heroes in war. It is very often thought of as resting on
magical powers. Max Weber treated every type of this quality in his
theory for explanation whether it is unenthusiastic or
Enthusiastic. He also included intellectual, and Heroes (such as
Alexander the Great etc.). Charismatic authority is different from
bureaucratic and traditional authority in performing the everyday
routine and the profane sphere. Bureaucrat authority is
specifically rational in the sense of being bound to intellectual
analyzable rules, while charismatic authority is specifically
irrational in this sense of being foreign to all rules. Traditional
authority is bound to the precedents handed down from the past and
to this extent is also oriented to rule while the charismatic
authority repudiates to past and is in this sense a specifically
revolutionary force. It recognizes the appropriation of positions
of power by virtue of the possession of property either on the part
of a chief or of socially privileged groups. The on basis of
legitimacy for it is personal charisma, so long as it is proved,
this, is, as long as it receives recognition and is able to satisfy
the followers disciples. But this lasts only so long as the belief
in its charismatic inspiration remains. The charismatic
revolutionary force alters the situations of action by changing
men's attitudes and intellectualizes the individual. Charisma, on
the other hand, may involve a subjective or internal re orientation
born out of suffering, conflicts or enthusiasm. It may then resin
in a radical alteration of the central system of attitudes and
directions d action, with a completely new orientation of all
attitudes toward the different problems and structures of the
"world."

MOTIVES
FOR TRANSFORMATION OF CHARISMATIC AUTHORITY

Under charismatic realm the social relationships directly
involved are strictly personal, based on the validity and practice
of charismatic personal qualities. If this is not to remain a
purely transitory phenomenon, but to take on the character of a
permanent relationship forming a stable community of disciples, or
a band of followers, or a party organization, or any sort of
political or hierocratic organization, it is necessary for the
character of charismatic authority to become radically changed.
Charismatic authority exists only in the process of originating. It
cannot remain stable, but becomes either traditionalized or
rationalized, or a combination of both. What are the motives
necessary for this transformation? (1) The material interests of
the followers in the continuation and the continual reactivation of
the community or in simple words we can say the economic and social
life is necessary for follower and they can not remain uncommitted
from their social life. (2) Both traditional and administrative
authority have an interest in continuing it in such a way that both
from an ideal and a material point of view, their own status is put
on a stable everyday basis. This means, above all, making it
possible to participate in normal family relationships and at least
to enjoy a secure social position, in place of the kind of
discipleship which is cut off from ordinary worldly connections,
notably in the family and in economic relationships.

SOLUTION FOR THE
PROBLEM OF SUCCESSION

These interests generally become conspicuously evident with the
disappearance of the personal charismatic leader, and with the
problem of succession which inevitably arises. The way in which
this problem is met if it is met at all and the charismatic group
continues to exist is of crucial importance for the character of
the subsequent social relationships. The principal possible types
of solution to problem appeared during the process of
succession:

SELECTION OF NEW
CHARISMATIC LEADER

The search for a new charismatic leader on the basis of criteria
of the qualities which will fit him for the position of authority.
A example of this is the choice of new Dalai Lama or new Bull of
Apis.

REVELATION
PROCESS

By revelation manifested in oracles, lots, divine judgments, or
other techniques of selection. In this case, the legitimacy of the
new leader is dependent on the legitimacy of the technique of his
selection. This involves a form of legalization. It is said that at
times the Schofetim of Israel had this character. Saul is said to
have been chosen by the old war oracle.

DESIGNATION BY CHARISMATIC
LEADER

By the designation on the part of the original charismatic
leader of his own successor and his recognition on the part of the
followers. This is' a very common form. Originally, the Roman
magistracies were filled entirely in this way. The system survived
most clearly into later times in the appointment of "dictators" and
in the institution of the "interrex." In this case, legitimacy is
acquired through the act of designation.

PRE DESIGNATION OF
SUCCESSOR BY SELECTION

Designation of a successor by the charismatically qualified
administrative staff and his recognition by the community. In its
typical form, this process should quite definitely not be
interpreted as "election," or "nomina¬¨tion," or anything of the
sort. It is not a matter of free selection, but of one which is
strictly bound to objective duty. It is not to be determined merely
by majority vote, but is a question of arriving at the correct
designation, the designation of the right person who is truly
endowed with charisma. It is quite possible that the minority and
not the majority should be right in such a case. It is obligatory
to acknowledge a mistake, and persistence in error is a serious
offense. Making a wrong choice is a genuine wrong requiring
expiation. Originally it was a magical offense. Nevertheless, in
such a case it is easy for legitimacy to take on the character of
an acquired right which is justified by standards of the
cor¬¨rectness of the process by which the position was acquired, for
the most part, by its having been acquired in accordance with
certain formalities, such as coronation. This was the original
meaning of the coronation of bish¬¨ops and kings in the Western
world by the clergy or the nobility with the "consent" of the
community. There are numerous analogous phenomena all over the
world. The fact that this is the origin of the modem conception of
"election" raises problems which will have to be gone into
later.

INHERIT QUALITY OR
KINSHIP

By the conception that charisma is a quality transmitted by
heredity; thus that it is participated in by the kinsmen of its
bearer, particularly by his closest relatives. This is the case of
hereditary charisma. The order of hereditary succession in such a
case need not be the same as that which is in force for
appropriated rights, but may differ from it. It is also sometimes
necessary to select the proper heir within the kinship group by
some of the methods just spoken of; thus in certain Negro states
brothers have had to fight for the succession. In China, succession
bad to take place in such a way that the relation of the living
group to the ances spirits was not disturbed. The rule either of
seniority or of designation by the follower has been very common in
the Orient. Hence, in the house of Osman, it has been obligatory to
eliminate all other possible candidates. Only in medieval Europe
and in Japan universally, elsewhere only spo¬¨radically, has the
principle of primogeniture, as governing the inheritance of
authority, become clearly established. This has greatly facilitated
the consolidation of political groups in that it has eliminated
struggle between a plurality of candidates from the same
charismatic family. In Asia there have been very numerous
heredi¬¨tary priesthoods; also, frequently, the hereditary charisma
of kinship groups has been treated as a criterion of social rank
and of eligibility for fiefs and benefices.

TRANSMITTED
DOGMA

The concept that charisma may be transmitted by formal procedure
means from one bearer to another or may be created in a new person.
The concept was originally supernatural. It involves a dissociation
of charisma from a particular character, making it an objective,
transferable entity. In particular, it may become the charisma of
office. In this case the belief in legitimacy is no longer directed
to the individual, but to the acquired qualities and to the
effectiveness of the ritual acts. The most important example is the
trans¬¨mission of priestly charisma by anointing, consecration, or
the laying on of hands and of royal authority, by anointing and by
coronation. The caratter indelibly thus acquired means that the
charismatic qualities and powers of the office are emancipated from
the personal qualities of the priest.

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